2 replies to this topic

[MinkusPugni]

I've always been confused as to what the different time periods are in the ballet and where the ballet is set? Which productions to what?

[Mel Johnson]

Whatever period a company chooses to set its Beauty in, after Aurora wakes up, it should only be a century later.  The Royal had a production many called the "Plantagenet Beauty", where the first scenes looked as if they were set sometime in the late 12th century and the last act sometime in the middle 15th.  They seemed to spread architecturally and costumewise over nearly 300 years, and they still didn't get out of one English dynasty.  When design academics like these call attention away from the dancing, you have a ballet with troubles.  

I personally prefer a 17th/18th century split.  Leave the medieval for Raymonda.

And what country does it take place in? Why, Fantasyland, of course!

[EricMontreal22]

I've read that Diaghilev changed it to 500 years...